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The look of panic on Paul’s face was real when he received the text from Ivan:
Hey mate, guess who tested positive for Covid-19!?!
Shit. Of course after having his best friend (and dealer) stay with him over Spring Break would turn into a quarantine situation.
The grumble from a lump next to him reminded him he wasn’t alone. The guy from last night, his hookup. Due to his mild hangover haze, the scenes from last night were choppy and disjointed—auburn hair and laughter and drinks and mind-blowing sex. The bloke was unexpectedly flexible….
He had met up at Drag Queen Bingo with friends, where Paul’s mate, who worked in the University theatres costume department, was emceeing for the event. Proceeds were supposed to support the local youth LGBTQ scholarship program, plus .50pc jello-shots were a poor Uni student’s dream!
They had really hit it off, and after winning a gift card to Greggs, they bought late night munchies and ended up at Paul’s.
Now, the very real outcome that he’d have to be in close confines with his one night stand gave him a shiver of anxiety in his guts. Or perhaps that was the late night veggie ‘sausage’ roll he’d eaten hours earlier.
All he knew was, he was going to have to break the news to this guy, Josh? Jake? John? John!!
Fuck.
An embarrassed, selfish part of himself whispered that he could just let John go on his merry way, none the wiser, without breathing a word about the news. But Paul’s conscience was too condemning, and his mum would never let him hear the end of it for further endangering others by keeping quiet.
With an aggrieved sigh he sat upright in bed and Googled the symptoms of the virus with frenzied fingers. Fever, shortness of breath, cough—his throat had been feeling rather ticklish as of late.
Yawning like a bear waking from hibernation, the wooly head of copper curls emerged.
“Hey,” he coughed, stretching his arms up, revealing pale skin scattered with freckles. A little detail he had missed in last night's romp in the darkness.
“Hey, so we might have a bit of a situation on our hands.” Still focused on his phone, Paul was trying to choose his words properly. They didn’t exactly do much talking last night, so there was no way to judge a reaction with something as alarming as this.
“‘Ey yeah? What? Did I get you pregnant?” he joked dryly.
“No! Daft bastard, my mate has that virus. Ya’ know, the Coronavirus? The whole bleedin’ country of Italy is closed because of it?!” Paul gestured a bit wildly while John stared blankly as if he had no idea what Paul was telling him.
“Christ, d’you ever look at the news?” Getting a little irritated now. “My friend, who stayed in this very flat just four days ago, has it. Therefore, you and I could develop it.”
“Yer just overreactin’,” John said, eyes lazily observing his panic with disinterest. “S’all exaggerated, y’know.”
“We’ll see if you feel the same way on yer deathbed.”
Apparently growing weary of the bickering, John rose from the bed and grabbed his shirt from the floor. Paul frowned as he watched him conceal all of his pale, smooth skin.
“Where’re you goin’?”
“Home,” he answered, muffled by the fabric slipping over his head. Finding his black skinny jeans, he began to make his exit.
“You can’t go home, you’re sick! Well, you might be sick, anyway.” Flinging the covers off himself, Paul followed after him. The odd crimson-red mark mottled his skin, framed memories from their night together. “And you’ll infect everyone else.”
“Well, where am I supposed to go?”
Paul paused, considering the implications of his own words. It seemed rather rude to potentially infect someone with a pandemic virus then kick them to the curb; even so, he hoped he wouldn’t regret his next suggestion.
“Stay here.”
John snorted. “With your infected arse? I don’t think so, mate.”
He wrapped his fingers around the doorknob. Paul’s hand flattened, firm and resolute, over the wood.
“We’re both sick, so it, like, cancels out.”
A bushy eyebrow lifted, skeptical. “They said that on the news, did they?”
“Fuck off, it makes sense,” Paul mumbled, cursing his own ignorance of the illness. His father had lectured him about staying up-to-date.
John smirked, hand uncurling from the knob.
“It does,” he murmured, tone taking an abrupt shift as he inched closer. “It makes a lot of sense. We can’t infect each other anymore than we might already have.” His eyes darkened in an infectious way of their own. Stopping his initial plan of fleeing the premises, only to push them closer to the bed.
When Paul plopped his perfect bum back onto the disheveled sheets, he found himself very grateful that the person he was going to be holed up with for an extended period of time was so damn sexy. His stomach coiled tighter with every inch closer John approached, honey-brown eyes pinning him to the mattress. He had a point: there was no consequence in sharing germs they had both already contracted.
Putting the positive spin on the outcome, he decided perhaps a morning shag would distract them from impending doom.
Undoubtedly encouraged by the compliance, John dipped his head, eye contact held as he planted a kiss to Paul’s hairy thigh. Legs spread in invitation, Paul bit his lip as thin ones traversed closer to the vee of his hips. In the honeydew glow of sunlight, the man was a work of art as he mouthed hotly over the steadily growing tent in Paul’s underwear. With the same admiration he would show any other masterpiece, Paul held his breath, colored by anticipation, while John tugged them down his long, pale legs.
* * *
“You basically gave me an STD,” John panted, the flippancy in his tone suggesting that even that wouldn’t have disconcerted him. His lean body had a sheen of sweat that emphasized his post-coital glow. Damn, if they didn’t have fantastic sex together...
“Who’s being dramatic now?” Paul scoffed, finger idly clocking individual freckles on the bloke’s shoulder. “I did not give you an STD. Besides, we don’t even know if we have it, we just have to stay isolated, and wait for symptoms to show up.” Ruffling through his sweat-matted locks, he was minutes away from jumping into the shower.
“Just how long do I have to stay here with you?” John turned to him, nuzzling his sharp nose along the soft skin behind his ear.
Humming with appreciation for the extra cuddles from this near stranger, “Quarantine should be fourteen days, according to the World Health Organization.”
Jolting away, giving Paul whiplash. “You serious!?” John sat up, looking down at the naked sprawl. “Fourteen days, together? Here?”
“Yeah, what’s the matter? Most place’s’ll be closed down anyway.”
“But I’ve gotta feed me cats.”
Paul frowned. “Can’t you get someone else to do it for a week or so?”
“Pfft, Ritchie’ll let ‘em starve, he will. But maybe Mimi can drop by,” he went on, as though thinking aloud. Reaching for his nearly dead, late model phone in the hot pink case, John began to frantically message people to make arrangements.
Meanwhile, Paul had his own problems. His mother must have heard from Ivan’s mum, instilling fear and panic through their little circle of concerned parents. It would have come as no surprise if she learned he had contracted the virus before he did, and she had already spammed his phone with precautions and hygienic orders in the few hours he had been awake. Paul texted her back, assuring her that he was quarantining himself. She didn’t need to know that the bartender from the night before would also be laying low in his flat as well.
Nearing the end of day one, they had convened in the small living room.
“Get everything in order with your cats then?” Paul looked up from his laptop.
“Guess so, sounds like the bar is closing for a while too.” John had plopped down onto the cheap Ikea futon, pulling glasses from his flannel shirt pocket.
“Hey, you didn’t have those on last night?” Paul gave him a sweet smile. “You look good in glasses.”
“Thanks,” shyly John looked to his lap. “Reckon that we should properly introduce ourselves, since we’ll be in each other’s back pockets a while, and well, you’ve been inside of me.” He extended his hand. “John Lennon.”
Paul shook it, wincing a bit at his bluntness. “Paul McCartney, charmed.”
“Ya got anything to drink in here?” John stood, walking to the tiny kitchenette, banging open cabinets. Only to find two bottles of kosher wine, and very cheap vodka. Ouch.
“M’not much of a drinker, but I did just replenish my stash, fancy a joint?” Paul announced from the couch.
Spinning on his heel with glee, John rubbed his hands mischievously, “Now you’re speaking my language, son.”
With a smirk Paul joined him in the kitchenette and popped the lid to a vintage, verdigris-ridden tea canister. The potent smell eddied out like a fist that punched them both in the face.
“Whew!” John exclaimed through a laugh, “Some strong tea you’ve got there, love.”
Plucking a particularly fat one, Paul said, “Gi’ us that lighter over there.”
John grabbed it from the counter, sparked the flame to life with a swift roll of his thumb, and held it out for Paul to swallow his first morning drag.
* * *
After four days, neither of them exhibited the symptoms they were expected to have by now.
The arrhythmia was there…shortness of breath and occasional butterflies. But no coughing or wheezing or fever. None of the symptoms he was supposed to be experiencing.
John had posited, “The fucking is building our immune systems.”
Paul had laughed, shutting him up with a kiss. Ignored the stutter of another fervent heartbeat.
A few spats had evolved over the time together, mostly the fact that John was a slob.
“You only have the clothes on yer back, yet this place looks like a tsunami hit us.” Paul understood that everyone had their quirks, but John was an odd duck.
Like how he always wore his gross gray tube socks, even during sex. “It’s a precautionary measure, loads of filth on the floor.” Quietly adding, “And it gives you better orgasms…”
Paul was successful in peeling the dirty things from his feet to wash them while John napped one afternoon.
In the meantime of their isolation, he taught his doomsday fuck-buddy a beginner’s lesson in knitting. Through the endless catalogue of his record collection, he learned more about John in four days than he ever had about anyone in the outside world. They completed half of a 50s-themed puzzle found buried in a closet—surely cached for such emergency apocalyptic circumstances—until the frequent brushing of knuckles got the best of them and their efforts were swept to the floor as John hoisted him onto the kitchen table.
Among other things, those first few nights also offered the comfort of a warm body wrapped around him while the world descended into madness around them. They were together, and they were safe. Somehow safer than Paul had felt in months.
Quarantine wasn’t seeming like such a devastation after all.
* * *
You’re supposed to self quarantine, not self-whore-antine, read a midday text from George.
Sorry, can’t hear you over all the orgasms I'm having ;), Paul replied.
John, fucked out and blissfully asleep in his bed, snored softly. So far, being quarantined with good weed and a partner as randy as himself, Paul was completely enjoying his ‘social distancing.’
Tearing his eyes from the sweaty, ivory expanse of John’s back, he returned his attention to his phone screen.
You gonna drop off some supplies then? Please Georgie?
Fine. I’ll leave them by the door, don’t want your lurgy. God you are a slut McCartney, can’t believe you need more condoms and lube….
U Luv Me! Xoxoxo
Like a hole in the head
With a grin Paul locked his phone and returned it to the bedside table. Careful not to disturb John, he burrowed beneath the covers and slipped an arm around his naked waist. A hand folded over his own, fingers entwining. A smile was hidden, like the cure to this entire situation, between John’s shoulder blades.
* * *
With replenished supplies, John attempted a romantic dinner of ramen noodles with eggs and a bottle of the Manischwitz. The first half of their “date” consisted of getting to know each other more through survivalistic scenarios—the usual icebreakers. But eventually conversation took a pensive turn.
“I’ve tried to stay aloof to it all, but today it really hit me,” John confessed, his saddened tone fitting to the heavy rain falling outside. “I mean…this thing is really spreadin’ quick ‘cos bastards won’t listen.”
He swallowed thickly. The first chink in an amused nonchalance that had been as much of a temporary resident as John himself. It wasn’t just protection from a virus he needed, but protection from the world at large.
“What if this is the start of the end?” Looking at Paul as if he had the answers to it all.
Pondering over the candles, he reached for John’s hand under the table.
“Suppose I’m glad it’s happening with you.”
Squeezing tighter, the grasp was reciprocated. What started as hypothetical, could possibly be their lives from this point forward.
Later when they tucked into bed, they held each other tight. Slowly their touches gained urgency, out of need to be connected.
With John rocking his hips in perfect time, meeting Paul’s deep thrusts, their rhythm changed.
Foreheads pressed, holding steady their path of vision into each other’s soul. It felt grounding. The clearest feeling of certainty. They needed each other like mad.
Kissing with anew, their arms twined, keeping every point touching. Never in his time being with another person had Paul felt so utterly in sync as he did with John.
When they climaxed together, both felt the earth move. They were falling for each other.
* * *
“Christ, this bleeding Communication Law class is going to kill me!”
Deeply distraught over the endless assignments, now that the rest of his Uni semester was online, Paul had distractingly avoided class work to be with John.
They were on day eight of the isolation, and in that time he’d not done a single lesson.
Maybe George was right, he was a whore for John. What was the phrase John called it? Dickmatized. Well, at least he was aware that he was slacking off on his assignments.
The bleakness of his workload wasn’t helping. So when he heard the sound of Mamma Mia! blaring from the television, along with John’s improvised lyrics of, “You are the dancing queen, young and sweet, stuck in quarantine,” he snapped.
“Ugh, John…. Can you please turn that down?”
He flittered into the bedroom with a half burned joint between his long fingers.
Where Paul sat cross legged on the well-used bedding. Head hung low, trying to be a good student.
“I’m sorry, did you just request me to turn down ABBA and Meryl Streep? What kind of gay are you?!”
“One that will seriously fail out of Uni if I don’t get some work done! Please, just be quiet.”
“What’re you studying? Maybe I can help?”
“Doubtful, unless you had Denby for Comm Law and are fluent in legal jargon, I’m fuckin’ toast.” Paul groaned, he was already slipping in the course prior to the epidemic.
“Actually, I did have Denby for linguistics theory, you just have to bullshit with him.”
“You went to Uni? Did you finish?”
John shrugged, puffing out a toke. “Nah, had a breakdown, and dropped out with only a semester left. Started working at the bar and was making a good living, so I just stayed put.”
He sounded confident in his decision at least.
“What was your emphasis? You should finish y’know. Being so close, don’t you want that?”
“You sound like Mimi! I might, just not ready yet. Oh, and it was Prose and Lit. I'm a bit of a poet, you just didn’t know it.” He awkwardly winked those glassy eyes.
Paul was besotted with the dork. Shaking his head, he tried to repress his smile.
“If you want to try and help, I’d appreciate it.”
Jumping into the pile, John snuggled close, pushing his glasses up his nose to help decipher Paul’s schoolwork. Although he didn’t know it all, they worked well together and got him all caught up in only a few hours.
“I suppose you’ll be needing payment for the ‘tutoring’.” Paul set his laptop aside and slid his palm over John’s thigh.
“Mmm, won’t say no to that.” Taking off his t-shirt in rapid time.
Working on the buckle of his belt, Paul straddled his legs.
Leaning to kiss Paul’s mouth, John cupped his face to be met with the softest lips he had ever experienced. He had really anticipated they would have grown tired and bored with each other, but the opposite was happening.
“God, I love kissing you.” Paul breathlessly mumbled into John's mouth.
“I know, feel the same way.” Pulling away, he moved so they were side by side. “This is crazy,” he whispered against the stubble of Paul’s lips.
He nodded, “It is, but it’s good, yeah?” Paul needed the assurance that he wasn’t alone with whatever this was.
“So good, babe.”
* * *
Paul’s hands stilled on the sudsy plate he was rinsing as he heard John’s voice raise. Just as quickly, it dropped to an irritated whisper, as though catching himself. When he had received a call from his aunt, he had excused himself from the kitchen and his drying duties. Until now, Paul hadn’t heard much of the conversation.
“His name is Paul and he didn’t give it to me, Mimi. I don’t even—” John sighed impatiently, presumably interrupted. “I don’t even have any symptoms.”
At the sound of his name Paul’s ears pricked. Over the stream of water he strained them, curious as to why his mention sparked such an argument.
“How can you say that when you don’t even know ‘im? He’s…he’s treating me good. We’re takin’ care of each other.”
Paul bit the inside of his cheek, staring unseeing at a marinara stain on the plate in his hands.
Another sigh, more weary this time. “Listen, Mimi, I gotta go. We’ll chat later…love you, too.”
Blinking rapidly, Paul recommenced the washing, feigning ignorance when John entered the room. “Everything alright?” he questioned casually.
“Yeah,” John muttered, snatching up the towel, “just a bloody hypochondriac, she is.”
“Well, it is the older folks that should be worried.”
He snorted. “I think she could kill the thing just by naggin’ it to death.”
Smiling, Paul said, “Not to nag you further, but you’ve accumulated quite the—”
Before he could continue his appraisal of John’s work, he was being hauled into a kiss with hands cradling his cheeks. A surprised noise lost on John’s lips, Paul settled his soapy hands around his waist, dampening his t-shirt. The running faucet rivaled the sound of slick lips, until softly John parted, leaving Paul weak-kneed and baffled.
“Um…,” he muttered articulately, while John grabbed a plate and finished drying.
“So I was thinking tacos for dinner, that okay with you?” he continued conversationally. “That vegetarian shit you had me try wasn’t so bad.”
“Hm? Yeah, yeah, tacos are good.”
Paul cleared his throat, found his footing. Grinning like an idiot, he placed another cup in the rack.
* * *
After a symptomless week Paul reasoned that isolation was no longer necessary. John no longer had to be a hostage suffering a stringent vegetarian diet and unbendable rules. He was a free man now.
During an afternoon monitoring news coverage, Paul reluctantly informed him of this: “It’s probably safe for you to leave now.”
Head pillowed on his lap on the sofa, John looked up with furrowed brows.
Paul couldn’t meet his eyes, instead watched the auburn hair gliding like silk between his fingers. “One of us would’ve shown symptoms by now.”
“Do you want me to go?”
The insecurity in his voice had Paul’s gaze snapping to his in an instant. He smoothed over the worried crease in John’s forehead with his thumb, assuring him, “No, that’s not what I’m saying. I don’t want you to be here against your will or anything.”
“A little too late for that,” John joked, the corner of his mouth lifting.
“Yeah,” Paul chuckled, shyly. “Sorry about the…paranoia. Mum’s a nurse, so I think it just kinda translates, y’know?”
“S’good to be cautious.” A kiss to the pulse of his wrist. “And I’m not here against my will, for the record.”
He smiled—something more catastrophically beautiful than the end of times. Something sure to ruin Paul all the same.
Turning back to the telly, John switched the channel from the panicked buzz of news anchors to something more refreshing. Voluminous hair, extravagant dresses, and amusing drag-queen drama soon dominated the screen.
* * *
Only one day did cabin fever get the best of Paul.
Despite the pandemic and pandemonium, his professors hadn’t shown much mercy on his workload. News coverage was still everywhere—an eyesore on his social media feed; an incessant whir in his ears from radio and television. Even on the rare day of pleasant weather, he couldn’t take a walk outside for a breather.
He was trapped, suffocating.
A headache ensuing from his computer screen, he knuckled his eyes. “I wanna get out—I’m fuckin’ sick of bein’ cooped up in here,” he muttered.
John looked up from a copy of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, pushed his glasses up his nose. “This’ll all blow over soon. It won’t last forever.”
“We don’t know that!” Paul waved his hand to the window and all of its missed opportunities. “I wanna go outside. I wanna take you somewhere.”
“We can go somewhere as soon as it’s over,” he answered calmly. “I promise.”
Paul shook his head, knuckles driving deeper against his eye sockets. “
He heard the scraping of chair legs on wood, then graceful fingers were swimming through his thick hair. “I know it ain’t easy. I get bored shitless too, love.”
He sighed, relished the soothing strokes.
“Deep breaths, baby,” John encouraged softly. His fingertips ventured down the nape of Paul’s neck, massaging deep into his shoulders.
Eyes closed, he rested his head against John’s stomach, heeding the advice with more obedience than he granted anything else these past few days. Drinking in the comforting scent of him. Lulled by the vibrations of gentle humming.
Eventually he raised his head to meet John’s it’s-only-me gaze.
“Alright?”
Paul nodded, eyes aflutter from the rake of fingers through his fringe. The slip in his composure left him embarrassed, but John didn’t judge him for it. Relieved, he stamped a kiss to his forehead before something ineffable gleamed in his eyes.
“‘Ang on,” and then he was flitting around the flat like a fly trapped in a glass. Yanking open curtains and rearranging the cheap living room furniture.
“Don’t think a change in the feng shui is the solution, love,” Paul teased, but frowned at this precipitous burst of inspiration.
“Have I ever told you how funny you are?” he retorted, breezing past Paul with arms full of tiny potted plants typically kept on the windowsills. In an arbitrary array they were dispersed around the now more spacious floor.
“John, what’re you doin’? I’ve got a paper to finish, I don’t have ti—”
“You’ve been at it all day. You need a break.”
Briefly he disappeared into the bedroom then returned with two compactly rolled yoga mats. As though unfurling a picnic blanket, he laid them out side by side in the middle of the living room. Seating himself cross-legged and barefoot on one of them, he stared up at Paul with pleading eyes impossible to ignore.
“Just give me twenty minutes,” he urged, reaching out a hand for him to take.
Paul bit his lip, looked at his laptop, turned back to John—with his white t-shirt draped low over his freckled shoulders and hair tinted dark red from the exposed sunlight and his altruism bundled up like a fellow yogi beside him on the mat—and sighed. This one was a no-brainer.
The beatific smile that broke across John’s lips as Paul grabbed his hand and stepped onto the adjacent mat nearly alleviated his frustration on the spot.
* * *
By the middle of the second week, a familiar routine had been established. John confided in Paul how grateful he was for the structure and how the irregularity of his own daily life sometimes left him in a funk difficult to escape.
Mornings consisted of breakfast made, half-naked and dream-soft, in the small kitchen while a COVID-19 Spotify playlist blared in the living room. Far from the last two people on earth, but reaping all of the liberation that accompanied it. They danced and stole kisses by the heat of the stove—the heat of affection burgeoning between them.
Most nights it all manifested in the lust that was too feral to tame. John’s lips revered every inch of his skin, the antidote he never knew he needed. If possible, each time was better than the first one—when Paul dragged him home from the bar, when the threat had yet to reveal itself as a next-door neighbor.
Too easy was it to forget that this time with John was all mandatory.
Paul became accustomed to maneuvering around another presence in his flat. He became accustomed to John’s toiletries in his bathroom and John’s clothes on his bedroom floor and John’s favorite sweets in his cabinets.
It filled all the gaps, denoted a home; he couldn’t imagine this place without any of it.
On Twitter extroverts lamented the torture of staying indoors; on Snapchat they swiped through stories of friends descending into madness with every passing day. Paul couldn’t relate to a single one of them. Inside, with John, was his slice of paradise.
And with every new medical breakthrough announced in the media, Paul’s heart slumped further in his chest.
* * *
Carefully he wound the sloppily-crafted, blue-and-green scarf around John’s neck, something tightening at his own throat as he realized what it all meant. After obsessively straightening the fabric, he looked down at the few belongings in John’s hands.
“Got everything?”
He nodded, but double-checked anyway. “Think so.”
The cases of infection had dwindled significantly after the development of a vaccine. Quarantine was officially over.
“Welp,” John began, somewhat awkwardly, after a pregnant pause. “Thanks for toughin’ out doomsday with me.”
“It was an honor. Best quarantine companion I could’ve asked for.”
“A real fab doomsday dick appointment.”
“Definitely,” Paul laughed.
With a sigh John nodded towards the door. “Gotta get back to the cats then.”
“Right. Send ‘em my love.”
In vain he pondered over something more to say, to prolong the inevitable. Why was this so hard?
“Bye, Macca,” John said quietly, beating him to it, then extended his hand for a shake.
Smiling softly, Paul batted it away in favor of a kiss. One of John’s bags thudded to the floor as he settled a hand on Paul’s cheek to deepen it. Tongues desperate for that last taste. It was different from every previous kiss shared, and Paul knew without a doubt that the world had ended after all.
Reluctantly John pulled away—lips, then forehead, then all of him.
It only felt appropriate for Paul to say, “Reckon I’ll give you your space for a while, yeah?”
“Yeah.” He retrieved his bag from the floor, opened the door. “Or don’t.”
And with a wink John left his flat.
Quiet crept in like a thief in the night. Sounds previously drowned out by the warmth of John’s voice now breached the surface again.
Paul rested his head against the door, feeling ridiculous for already missing him.
He retrieved his phone from his pocket and held his breath as he pulled up John’s contact. A cross-eyed spastic face that John had wanted deleted from his camera roll, but that Paul fully intended to frame and display on the fridge.
Stomach taut with a whorl of courage, he typed, I love you, stay safe <3 and pressed send.
* * *
From the pavement Paul gauged the emptiness of the pub, chairs still stacked on tables and faint light only bathing the counter at the back. As the door closed behind him, a familiar voice behind the bar called, “Sorry, mate, we’re closed.”
“Really? I thought maybe you just forgot to tell people the doors were open again.”
At the recognition of his voice, John spun around from the liquor display with a smile on his face. “Well, if it isn’t my doomsday dicking partner!”
Suppressing a grin, Paul grabbed a seat at the counter. God, he’d missed him.
“Thought maybe the virus got to you after all,” John went on. “One text, then I don’t hear from you for days.”
Paul had sensed that may come up. After his bout of audacity, overthinking got the best of him and he wondered if perhaps his message had been too forward, despite its positive reception. But it wasn’t like John gave him much to work with over the past couple of days either.
“Phone works both ways, Johnny.”
“Touché. But the pub’s been swarmed by all the deprived alcoholics.” He tossed a beer-stained cloth over his shoulder and leaned his forearms on the counter. “So what brings you in?”
Paul faltered.
Should he maybe order a drink first? Or ride out this flirtatious banter until he dead-ended? What if John declined, gaped at him as though he were insane?
The cards were in his hand, ready to be laid upon the table.
“I was thinking—”
“Always a dangerous thing.”
Smiling, Paul shoved his arm. “I was thinking …about you possibly quarantining with me again? But, y’know, permanently.”
It was out there. It was absurd and far too soon and a nosedive into the concrete of catastrophe, but at least it was out there.
A smirk tugged at John’s lips, leaving Paul suspended in cruel anticipation.
“Paul McCartney,” he drawled, “are you asking me to move in with you?”
“No, I specifically suggested a permanent quarantine. Entirely different.”
“I’m not convinced it is.”
He shrugged, anxiety expertly concealed. “Call it what you want, but it’s in everyone’s best interest if I keep you and yer disgustin’ tube socks away from the rest of the world.”
“Piss off,” John laughed, “they’re clean now.”
“Cos of me.”
“Maybe.” Jumping that train of thought to board another, he asked, “Can I bring my cats?”
Paul smiled. “You can bring your cats.”
With a hop, his bum landed on the counter and he whirled his legs around the opposite side, preparing to jump down. “Then let’s start packin’ right now, baby!” Enthusiastically John reached for him.
“Wait”—Paul pulled away, placing a hand on his thigh and chuckling—“don’t you have to work?”
“Shit, yer right…. After work, then, yeah?”
Just above John’s knee, his fingers squeezed. “Sounds good.”
So much closer, Paul could see the effect that a week’s post-quarantine had on him. His eyes had rekindled that spark which initially piqued Paul’s interest in him in this very pub; his face had restored the vitality never lurking too far below the surface. He was a man of which no malady could taint the spirit.
Gazes locked, John curled his fingers beneath Paul’s chin and tenderly tipped his head up for an intoxicating kiss. Along with the rest of the world, it was reinvigorated. John’s fingers restless on his face and Paul’s hand mischievous at his inner thigh. A desperation garnered over separation.
Paul could practically taste the promises, heady and savory, when John whispered against his lips, “Hope you’ve got plenty of condoms this time.”